NATIONAL STATIONERY WEEK

Below, we have complied a list of 20 fun facts
about stationery. As ever, feel free to share your opinions over on our Facebook and Twitter pages.

1. An average sized pine tree can
make just over 80,000 sheets of paper.

2. Before erasers were invented in 1770, the preferred
method for removing pencil was actually stale bread.

3. The world’s first pencil was invented way back in
1565.

4. The average office worker handles around 10,000 sheets
of paper per year.

5. Pencil leads actually contain no lead whatsoever –
just graphite and clay

6. The Egyptians invented scissors back in 1500BC.

7. In the UK, around 45 million printer cartridges are send to landfill every
year.

8. During the Second World War, paper clips were used to
help fight the Nazis. Norwegian resistance members wore paper clips on their
lapels as a discreet sign to show that they were fighting Hitler’s men.

9. Talking of World War II, this was also where ballpoint
pens rose to fame. The Royal Air Force needed an alternative to the fountain
pen as it couldn’t handle high levels of altitude without leaking.

10. The average ballpoint pen can draw a line two miles
long.

11. However, a typical lead pencil can draw one that is
35 miles long – providing you sharpen it every now and then, of course.

12. Pencils can write in zero gravity and while
underwater.

13. The first known stapler was made for King Louis XV of
France in the 18th century.

14. Joseph Priestley, the man who discovered oxygen, also
helped to invent erasers.

15. The Fulgor Nocturnus is
the most expensive pen in the history of the world. Decorated with 945 black
diamonds, the pen sold for the equivalent of£6.2mat a Shanghai
auction back in 2010.

16. 2,500 pencils can be made from one average sized
tree.

17. The word ‘pen’ comes from an old French word for the tail feather or long
wing of a bird.

18. Pencils didn’t have rubbers attached to the end of
them until around 100 years ago. This was due to teachers feeling as though
they would encourage students to make errors.

19. Talking of which, the metal band that now attaches a
pencil to a rubber is called a ferrule.

20. Mick Clay invented the drawing pin back in 1903. Sadly,
that didn’t stop him from living in poverty as shortly after, he sold the
invention.